CPUC president appoints self in San Bruno probe

[alp227]

The head of the state Public Utilities Commission - faulted by critics for its lax safety oversight during his tenure - has put himself in charge of deciding whether Pacific Gas and Electric Co. will be fined for the deadly San Bruno gas explosion.

President Michael Peevey has acknowledged that the agency he has led since 2003 had been lax and complacent on safety before the Sept. 9, 2010, disaster, in which eight people died and 38 homes were destroyed.

A blue-ribbon panel he appointed in the wake of blast, as well as the National Transportation Safety Board, said the agency's oversight as flawed.

This month, the commission lodged charges that could result in hundreds of millions in penalties against PG&E for a string of violations of state and federal safety regulations related to San Bruno.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/25/BAL41MUEKH.DTL

[DCKit]

1. What (and how many) lower level employees is he going to throw under the bus?

Starting with a farce, it'll end as a fiasco.